What would you tell someone starting out as a freelancer?

Being a freelance journalist is an amazing way to spend your working life. You’re granted a license to be curious, to ask questions, to explore new ways of thinking, and to expose readers to ideas.

Freelancing can be incredibly challenging when you’re first starting out – pitching, getting commissions, chasing payments, tax returns – but things really do get easier as you gain more experience, develop contacts and hone your craft. And if, like me, you’re passionate about storytelling, people and ideas, the good days outweigh the bad days by far, even early on.

Being a freelance journalist is an amazing way to spend your working life

What motivates you as a writer?

Almost everything! I love discovering stories, having the opportunity to speak to interesting people, learning about new trends in different subject areas, and creating work that makes people think more deeply about the world we live in.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever been given?

I was an overachiever growing up, and the most important advice I’ve ever been given in my adult life is to stop trying to be the best and start focusing on making your work better.

Journalism is a skill to be developed as you move forward in your career, not a competitive process that produces winners and losers. Through this simple change in perspective, I began to feel more fulfilled by the work that I was doing and saw each new story improve.

Stop trying to be the best and start focusing on making your work better

When I find myself stuck for ideas, I listen to the radio, watch documentaries, read as much as possible from as many different sources, and speak to people about what’s going on in their lives. There are stories to be discovered in anything and everything - from your living room to your local pub, from your home city to the most remote places in the world. A journalist’s role is to find these stories and tell them as well as possible.

Why would people want to break into journalism? What’s exciting about it right now?

The internet is the future of the media industry, and the possibilities of where things might go are almost endless. All of this makes it a really exciting time to be a journalist. Innovative and experimental reporting such as Jon Henley’s incredible multimedia project about the Australian bushfires of 2013 are a great example of how journalists can reach new audiences by utilising technology and social media.

Of course, we’re also in a time of enormous change in the media industry. Print media has experienced, and continues to experience, massive decline, but it’s not like journalism and reporting itself is disappearing. In fact, the ability to work with words has never been more in demand, and there are more opportunities now than ever before, because there are more outlets for writers to pitch stories to.

Reading, watching and listening as widely as possible is a crucial part of being a freelance journalist

Do you have any favourite writers or journalists?

Of course! Reading, watching and listening as widely as possible is a crucial part of my job as a freelance journalist, and this has led me to the work of some fascinating writers and broadcasters.

Lauren Razavi is a freelance journalist who specialises in feature writing and foreign reporting. She contributes to a range of publications, including regular work for the Guardian, New Statesman and VICE. She tweets @LaurenRazavi